Not Currently Available

It’s Booker time once again and I am trying to get my books. I ordered four from Powell’s using my accumulated store credit.

None of the remaining eight are available in the US yet.

Since I prefer digital books anyway, I thought I would buy them in Kindle format and read them on my phone. Alas, while they are all listed on Amazon, none of them are “currently available.” Thwarted!

This raises a few questions. Are the authors served by this arrangement? Is the consumer served? (No!) How long will this state of affairs last as more and more books are sold electronically?

It appears possible to circumvent the problem by somehow changing the location on my phone so the website thinks I am British. This sounds not only beyond my technological expertise but also a way to somehow get in trouble down the road. So I’ll resort to what I did last year, and order them directly from the UK Amazon. It’s not against the law or anything. Although probably not for lack of trying.

DISCLAIMER

I'm not really a reviewer or a critic. First, what I write can't really be called reviews, because I deliberately leave out any kind of description of a book's plot or characters - I like a blank slate when I start a book and I'm assuming you do too. Second, I almost never criticize anything about a book. I love reading and it's rare for me to bring home a book that doesn't wow me or at least please me, which is why I don't accept ARCs. So if you're looking for real detail or insightful criticism, you'll have to track down a blogger smarter than me!

What I’m Reading This Week

(In case you want to drop everything, read it, and have a discussion about it with me):
The Woman Who Lost Her Soul - Bob Shacochis
AUDIO: The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt